This Week's Visual Journal

Week 17 of 2024

Week 17 of 2024 is here and we’re experiencing a typical Springtime in England. April has been so cold and wet with some very short sunny spells. No bbq yet in South Yorkshire! On the plus side, the Wellington boots I got for Christmas are getting plenty use, my hay fever isn’t causing too much agro and of course the plants are getting all the water they need. And check out this carpet of lily-of-the-valley!!!

I spotted the lily-of-the-valley flowers while painting the native bluebells (which you can sort of see in the background here). I was completely delighted to find them. As a kid growing up in France, I remember our teachers getting us some from a local flower market and made us go round our neighbourhood, knocking on doors to sell little bunches and raise money for class trips. I wonder if kids still do that nowadays. In French, they are called “le muguet” and are traditionally given to loved ones on the 1st May and this has been the case since the 16th Century. So I thought it would be lovely to include these in my journal. As you’ll see though I got frustrated with my layout and changed things quite a bit along the way. Also, the video represents about 1h35 - too long for a visual journal spread and I’m glad you didn’t hear me getting annoyed!! In the end, I think it turned out ok but it felt like a real battle this week, not sure why. And I guess that’s ok!

Although I LOVE these words (and will definitely use them again), I decided my attempts at lettering “The Little Steps” and “On hanging in there when it’s challenging” irritated me too much to leave them there and so I let them disappear under a layer of my good old and faithful Paynes Grey acrylic paint - and I then decided to use most of the left page to illustrate a woodland carpet of lily-of-the-valley, keeping the red Prismacolor pencil HOPE banner.

As well as the woodlands, our other highlight this week was witnessing a goldfinch landing just outside our window, as we were having breakfast together yesterday morning. We had never seen one in our garden before so it was pretty special. It stayed for a few minutes, long enough for us to quickly observe and get our identification books and sheets out. We also saw the usual bluetits and robins and after the boys came home from school, a large group of starlings (called “a murmuration”) came by the dozen to hunt for worms. Another benefit of wet weather.

Hope you’ve had a lovely week. x